


I Will Become What I Deserve

by manycoloureddays



Series: Are You Sitting Comfortably [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Children's Television AU, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22599238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays
Summary: It starts with a question; a little thoughtless, born of shock. "Do you think there are more?"It starts at night, in Atlanta, in Patty’s unusually full kitchen, with the second bottle of wine almost empty and the awkward silence after Stan finishes their story with, “and then we all got out of there. All seven of us. And, well, now here we are.”*Or, everybody lives and decides the best way to deal with clown trauma is to create a Sesame Street style television show to help kids fight monsters.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: Are You Sitting Comfortably [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626145
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	I Will Become What I Deserve

**Author's Note:**

> this au has been kicking around in my brain for a month or so now, and thanks to encouragement from @pantsaretherealheroes and @broromini i have started writing it! this is part one of what i hope will be a series of vignettes.
> 
> un beta'd because i am impatient! 
> 
> title from The Fear by Ben Howard

It starts with a question; a little thoughtless, born of shock. “Do you think there are more?”

It starts at night, in Atlanta, in Patty’s unusually full kitchen, with the second bottle of wine almost empty and the awkward silence after Stan finishes their story with, “and then we all got out of there. All seven of us. And, well, now here we are.”

Patty is sitting on the kitchen counter, wine glass forgotten beside her around the time Bill said the words ‘haunted fortune cookies’. Stan and his friends are gathered around her kitchen island, all of them watching her face warily. Their silence stretches, punctuated by the ticking clock, the hum of the fridge, crickets through the open window. 

“So, gonna send us to the psych ward, Pats?” Richie asks, eventually, and gets an elbow to the solar plexus from Eddie and a soft chorus of ‘beep beep’ for his efforts. 

She snorts, picks up her glass, drains it and pours another. Lets it sit beside her, just in case. Maybe someone who heard the story second hand, who didn’t bear witness to the telling, who wasn’t Patricia Uris in her kitchen watching exhausted near-strangers purge themselves of it, maybe that person would call in doctors. 

Patty shakes her head. 

She had heard the story of their nightmare childhood and the summer of ‘89 not even a week ago, after Stan dropped his phone mid call. He sat among scattered puzzle pieces, looking more and more like he was going to die with every breath he took. His eyes blank, void of almost everything until he spoke about his friends and the fear crept. She had held him while he sobbed and shook in her arms and told her horror stories that made no sense, except for how they explained the scars he’d never remembered getting, and why he couldn’t look at certain works of art, why she had to get her mother to take down her Modigliani print, and why he never, ever, spoke about his childhood. Not even when they first met, eighteen and barely out of it. 

It was unbelievable and yet she had believed him. He had talked about walking evils and bathrooms of blood and floating children, but he was still Stanley. Her Stanley. He was her husband, and he had never lied to her. 

And now she looks at these people in her kitchen. Bruised and battered and almost falling asleep standing up, but only three days clear of their own horror story still refusing to leave each other’s sides for anything longer than a bathroom break. Stan nestled among them. 

She would never have said Stan was uncomfortable with other people, but he had never sought out large groups either. At big functions he stuck to her side, always said she was his extroverted shield. But with his friends, with these friends, he looked more at ease than she had ever seen him. All seven of them reach out to each other seemingly without thinking. She’s been watching them since they arrived mid afternoon, spilling out of two hire cars and up her driveway, apologising for arriving on her doorstep. They are a dance of hip checks and briefly entwined fingers and chins hooked over shoulders and arms around waists, none of them ever straying far, all of them touching at least one other person pretty much all the time. 

The love in the room is palpable. Patty draws her knees up under her chin, looks at them each in turn. They’re still waiting for her reaction. 

“Do you think there are others?”

She almost regrets asking the question. The tension she’s watched leak out of them the longer they’ve been in her house returns immediately. Stan starts to shake, Bev’s eyes turn glassy, Ben drops to the floor, Eddie swears, Richie breaks the glass he’s holding, Mike can’t catch his breath, Bill starts to pace. 

“Oh my fucking god, do you think there are others?” Eddie asks, whipping his head around wildly. He pats his pockets like he’s looking for something that’s usually there. “Mike, Mikey, are there others? Are there more? Oh fuck, oh shit…” 

“No. I mean, no, right?” Ben asks from the floor. “There can’t be more. There can’t be.”

Mike still looks like he’s counting his way in and out of breaths, but Richie reaches out for Eddie’s hand where it’s uselessly patting pockets. He says something under his breath that seems to bring Eddie back to himself; Patty can’t hear it from the other side of the kitchen. 

Her eyes are on Stanley. She watches him curl in on himself, fingers into fists that bat the sides of his thighs, chin tucked into his chest. She can see the way his breathing catches jagged and wishes she could stuff the words back in her mouth. 

But it seems like an important question. The safety of the man she’s loved for more than half her life is at risk. The safety of the people he loves, too. It’s an important question.

Patty drops down off the counter and walks slowly up to her husband, moving into his side so she doesn’t corner him. She puts her hands on his arms, runs them up, up, up, until she’s cupping his cheeks and turning his face to look at her. She pushes her thumbs under his glasses, rubs the deep bags beneath his eyes. Whispers  _ baby _ . Whispers  _ I love you _ . Whispers  _ I’m sorry _ . She watches, breathing slowly and deliberately, as Stan comes back to her again. 

“I’ve never … I never even considered … My books are all still there… I didn’t even think,” Mike is saying. He looks lost, small, even as he towers over everyone. But his voice is clearly what the others need to snap themselves out of their own panic. 

Patty marvels at it - their ability to pull themselves together for one another, after decades apart. They’ve been apart slightly longer than she and Stan have been together, she realises and her heart aches for them. For their teenage selves, for the adults they are now, wrapped around each other. She thinks that maybe they’ve been wrapped around each other all this time, leaving spaces in each other’s hearts. She thinks it explains a lot.

She wants to wrap them all in blankets and bring them mugs of tea. She thinks she could fight monsters for them.

They all have their hands on Mike. Bev and Bill tucked under his arms, hugging him like their hands are holding him together, Ben with his arm around Mike’s shoulders on Bev’s side, Eddie doing the same on Bill’s, Richie at his back, his hand curled around Mike’s neck, squeezing gently, and Stan, eyes fierce, with his hands on Mike’s face, a mirror of what she was doing for him not a minute ago. 

They’re all murmuring to him, soothing and chastising and joking and cajoling. 

“No, n-no, this isn’t your fault.”

“Honey, it’s not your fault at all.”

“You gave up everything.  _ Years _ of your life, Mikey.”

“If anything, this is Eddie’s fault.”

“My fault? How is it my fault, dipshit! It’s nobody’s fault. None of us thought. Another It… None of us thought…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re all okay.”

“We’re going to b-b-be okay.”

“But if there’s something else out there. If there  _ is _ something else…”

“We’ll do what we’ve done tw-wice now. We’ll face it together.”

“Yeah, together.”

“You’re not alone, Mike. You’re not alone anymore.”

“We’ve got you.”

“We’ve got you.”

Patty tiptoes across to the sink to fill the kettle. It’s something her mother used to do, and something she and Stan have always done in times of crisis. They’re all forty odd years old, but she might just bundle them up in blankets too. 

  
  


Once everyone’s on the couch, mugs of tea and hot chocolate in their hands, Patty feels as though she’s sifted through her thoughts enough to broach the topic again. This time, hopefully, without causing more emotional distress. She’d really rather avoid distress altogether at this point. 

She’s still not going to be the one to bring it up. That’s something she’s more than happy to leave to them. 

They don’t have a large living room, but just like in the kitchen, none of them seem to mind piling in on top of one another. Mike, Ben, Eddie and Bev are on the three seater, with Richie at their feet, leaning back against Bev and Eddie’s legs. Bev’s head is tucked into Eddie’s shoulder, Mike and Ben have their legs tangled, Eddie’s hand is in Richie’s hair. Like they’re worried if they’re not touching, they’ll disappear. 

Patty had insisted that Bill take the loveseat with Stan while she was making drinks. He tried to get up and let her sit down when she finished, but Stan had looked so comfortable tucked into his side that she’d waved him off. Besides, she hadn’t been fighting demons from space, she figured he could use the comfort. She curled up on the floor, one hand wrapped tight around Stan’s ankle, the other holding her tea. 

“There are way too many marshmallows in that mug,” Stan says. She can’t see his face, but she can hear the smile he’s trying to hold back. 

Richie grins, trying to poke another marshmallow into the cloud already rising out of the mug. “No such thing as too many marshmallows, Stan my man.”

“Here, here!” Patty reaches across the coffee table, hand held up for a high five that Richie gives willingly. 

“You’re a woman after my own heart, Patricia Uris,” Richie says, blowing her a kiss. 

“Are you trying to rot your teeth? It’s like your dad wasn’t even a dentist,” Eddie says, glaring down at Richie’s drink like it’s personally wronged him. “How are you even supposed to drink that? Oh my  _ god, Richie _ , we can’t take you anywhere. You’re going to spill it, you’re going to spill it on their carpet. You cannot possibly fit that many marshmallows in your mouth at once!”

Bev gasps, gleeful, and turns away from her conversation with Mike and Ben. “He can though! Don’t you remember? He fit, was it fifteen? One of those times we camped out at yours, Mike.”

“You camped out at mine a lot, and Richie … made interesting choices a lot. I don’t think I remember a marshmallow incident?”

“I think it was my birthday,” Ben says. He chuckles before adding, “and he gagged dramatically after sixt-”

“Sixteen, yes, thank you Benjamin. And interesting choice it may have been, but I only did it because Bill dared me to. Also a little because I wanted to.”

Patty laughs. She gets the impression that Richie would still do anything Bill dared him to. 

Stan weaves his fingers into her hair. She pushes his sock down, draws patterns on the skin of his ankle. She can feel the way he’s settling into the seat behind her. He’s carrying on a conversation with Bill, moving away from marshmallows to something about puzzles, she thinks, from the bits and pieces she catches, but they’re both chuckling at the others, keeping an ear out for all the conversations in the room.

It feels like being back home with her family. A room full of people and voices and love, everyone aware of everyone else. And tonight feels like the reverse of the first time Patty had taken Stan home for the holidays. He’d been so worried about fitting in with her huge, raucous family because growing up it had mostly just been him and his parents, and sometimes his grandparents. She knows now, why he seemed to take to loud arguments that weren’t really arguments, and too many conversations layered one on top of the other, and more little cousins underfoot that anyone knew what to do with. Knows as she watches Richie pluck a half-melted marshmallow out of the mug and pop it in Eddie’s mouth, already open mid rant. She knows as Bev throws her head back and laughs, as Ben watches her, adoring, while also reaching out and saving Eddie’s tea from being knocked over. She knows as Mike shares a look with her, grinning, what it must have felt like to Stan to be accepted into the chaos before they’d even crossed the threshold of her parent’s house. 

Bill clears his throat, so softly Patty would have ignored it if it weren’t for the hush that falls over the room, the others all turning to look at him.

“Bill,” Bev says, and her tone carries so much that Patty can’t parse. There’s caution and empathy and fear, but they’re buried under layers of history that she’s just not privy to. 

“W-we have to consider it.” 

Patty rearranges herself on the floor so she can see Bill, and more importantly, Stan. She doesn’t know Bill well enough to read him like this, self contained, behind a wall she hasn’t seen yet. But she knows Stan, knows him as well as she knows herself. She grew up with him, she’s going to grow old with him. He’s watching Bill like Bill’s holding his heart in his hands, like he knows he’s going to break it. 

“Do we, though?” Richie asks. When Patty looks over at him, his eyes are on Stan. She wonders how much Stan told them about the night of Mike’s phone call. Wonders how much he needed to. “Do we have to consider it? We fought that fucking clown twice, I say we’ve done enough.”

Ben nods, his arm tightening around Mike’s shoulder. “I know we haven’t really talked about it, but we were lucky to make it out of there alive. I don’t think I could do that again. I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“Besides, we’re forty years old, man.” Eddie knocks his tea back like it’s a shot, grimaces like it burns. “The clown was one thing. We promised. But I can’t … I can’t do it again either.”

Bill nods. “I’m not, I’m not really asking you to, I don’t think. I just, I think we sh-sh-sh-sh  _ fuck _ , I think we sh-should consider what we know. About, about the world.”

Stan draws in a shaking breath. “What … um … ” Patty rubs circles around his ankle. “What do you mean?”

“How many people do you think there are who know, not believe,  _ know _ , that monsters exist?” Patty asks. All seven of them look at her. She wonders what they were like as kids. Thirteen and no adults to protect them. She can hardly stand it. “What if we could help kids like you?”

None of them say anything, but Bill nods emphatically, so at least she knows they’re on the same page. Stan reaches down and squeezes her shoulder. She lets go of his ankle, reaches up and tangles their fingers together, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. 

“We?” he asks, smiling softly. 

“For better or worse, baby,” she grins up at him. 

“Okay, sure. We have a unique perspective or whatever, but how do we help kids fight monsters without people questioning our sanity or, you know, dying?” Richie asks. “Because I for one have really enjoyed not dying in the last week, how about you guys?”

Eddie nods furiously, tapping Richie on the head. “Seconded. Also, I’m currently trying to figure out how to break it to my wife that I want a divorce, and I think going public about fighting monsters might make her double down on her theory that I have a head injury from crashing my car and am in no fit state to make huge life changes. Which I am. In a fit state. And making huge life changes, I guess.”

Bev nuzzles closer to Eddie, says, “good for you, honey,” but there seems to be a tacit understanding among the group not to react too overtly to the revelation, and Patty is happy to go along with it. Richie keeps darting looks over his shoulder that Eddie is studiously ignoring, but he does start fiddling with Richie’s hair again, which seems to relax them both enough to return to the conversation at hand. 

“Maybe we don’t have to say we believe in monsters,” Mike says. “Maybe there’s a way we can tell people who already know about monsters that they’re not alone.”

They all flinch, and Stan says, “Mikey,” like his heart is breaking. 

Mike waves off their apologies. “Guys, I appreciate it, but it’s not like you all deliberately forgot about me,” he chuckles, sad but not at all bitter, and Patty gathers this isn’t the first time they’ve apologised to him. She doubts it will be the last. 

But Mike’s words seem to be the push they needed to start talking about a plan. Patty wonders if they’ll feel like they’ve made it up to him if they find a way to protect other kids, to make sure they’re not alone. 

Bill leans forward. “So, what are you thinking, Mikey?”

“Well, there’s already one person in the room who’s made a career out of monsters without getting strange questions.” Mike grins at Bill, and Patty files away the pink in Bill’s cheeks for later discussion with Stan. 

“That’s because nobody believes everything they read in a horror novel,” Stan says, reasonably. And Patty agrees, but there’s something in this idea. She’s got the tail end of it, and she knows that if she chases it, it will disappear. She just has to be patient. 

“Have you written about It in any of your books?” Bev asks. “I had dreams - nightmares. But there was something that stuck in my head, even when I didn’t know. I don’t think it ever really let us go.”

“I don’t think so,” Bill says at the same time Mike says, “not exactly.” 

Everyone looks at Mike. He holds his hands up, grinning like he’s been caught out but doesn’t really mind. 

“I mean, I kept tabs on you guys. And it was really easy to follow Bill’s career, read each book as it came out. You all know this.”

“So, did you find any references to It in his work when you were stalking us?” Bev asks, smirking, and Mike sticks his tongue out at her. 

“There aren’t any clowns or red balloons if that’s what you’re asking. But there are always fire forged friendships. One of them has a boy obsessed with birds, another has a redhead who smokes. Just little things. There were a couple that had, um, little brothers who went missing.”

The atmosphere in the room shifts; Stan leans more heavily into Bill’s side, Richie reaches across the carpet to squeeze Bill’s knee. 

“Does that mean I have to read all of them looking for the comedy genius with glasses?”

Eddie snorts. “Comedy genius? That’s cute.”

Richie tilts his head back against Eddie’s knee to make eye contact. “You know what’s cute, Spaghetti? The tiniest asthmatic, my favourite recurring Denbrough character.”

The tension breaks again. Ben, Bev, Mike and Bill laughing, Stan watching them indulgently. Eddie, still laughing, sits up a little straighter. “That’s an idea though. Bill and Rich are both kinda famous for telling stories. I know horror writing and comedy aren’t the most similar, but … ”

And that’s it, that’s the shape of the idea Patty’s been chasing. Mike’s already nodding, and she knows he sees it too, was heading in this direction earlier. 

“Are we talking like a What We Do in the Shadows type thing, or what?” Richie asks. “Because I could be into that.”

They throw ideas around for a while. Mike suggests a podcast with a write-in element, “like Welcome to Nightvale meets an advice column, but not everyone knows it’s real”, and Bev seems keen on a series of Choose Your Own Adventure comics. Eddie and Bill are arguing over how much of their own stories they would want to include in a True Crime podcast, when Ben says, “what about a kids’ show?” 

Which may actually be the question that starts it all.

“A kid’s show?” Stan asks. 

“Like The Muppets, or Sesame Street. Educational and fun, with puppets and adults that don’t talk down to kids,” Ben explains, seeming more and more invested in the idea as he goes. He leans forward, excited smile growing. “Yeah, and we could do research on areas that have the most prevalent ghost stories and cryptid sightings with correspondingly high crime rates, maybe set the show there or something? I don’t know. And if it’s a kids’ show, we could all be involved. Use our different skills.”

“We could have our own segments!” Bev beams up at Ben. He looks down at her with such a soft smile that Patty’s impressed Bev doesn’t melt on the spot. “We could teach kids how to protect themselves, show them they’re not alone.”

Patty gets the feeling she’s not just talking about kids fighting supernatural monsters. Most monsters, Patty is all too aware, are closer and more human than that. 

There’s a moment where the others think about it, before the calm bubbles over and they’re all speaking at once, loud and excited, all limbs and exclamations. 

“There could be a story corner!”

“And puppets!”

“Oh my god, Rich, Rich! You have to do Voices for the puppets!”

“ … think I could do nature walks?”

“Does everything need to be about blowing stuff up?”

“Blowing stuff up would be fun, and besides … ”

“Just thinking about the costumes I could make …” 

“Ben, you crazy genius!”

Patty’s not sure who starts off the yawning, but it’s so catching that pretty soon they’re going round the room in circles. Each of Richie’s yawns is more dramatic than the last. Eddie and Bev’s heads are knocking together every time they start drifting. Patty looks at Stan and he nods sleepily, so she stands, her knees protesting after being tucked up underneath her for hours. She’s getting too old to sit like that. 

“You coming, Stanley?” she asks, reaching out to him. 

“Right behind you, babylove.”

For a room full of people who are both exhausted and middle aged, they certainly make a lot of noise when given the opportunity. They burst out laughing, none of it mean spirited. Richie lets out a delighted, “Staniel!” 

“Oh fuck off,” Stan says grinning. “Do you all remember where the spare room and the linen closet are? I’d offer to make the extra mattresses up for you, but you Losers lost those privileges decades ago.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got it,” Bev says, heaving herself off the couch. She crosses the room and wraps Stan up in a tight hug. “Love you, Stanley.”

“Love you too,” Stan murmurs into her shoulder, and then they’re all getting up and hugging Stan, and each other, goodnight. She smiles, leaning up against the wall to watch. A week or so ago, the only person Stan hugged with any sort of regularity was Patty, now he’s at the centre of a hug that seems to have no beginning or end. She wouldn’t really be surprised if she woke up tomorrow in bed with seven other people.

Once they break apart, Ben and Bev follow Stan and Patty upstairs. They’re taking the spare room, and from what Patty understood of the complicated, decades old dibs system being debated downstairs, Mike is taking the pull-out in the study, and Richie is on the double blow up with either Eddie or Bill, depending on who wins paper-scissors-rock. 

“Thank you for having us, Patty. I know we’re a lot. We really appreciate it.” 

Ben is so earnest that Patty can’t help but go in for a hug. She’s too short to reach up for a proper one, so she just wraps her arms around Ben’s middle like a child hugging a parent. “Oh, please, anytime. You’re family.”

Stan beams at her, and gives Ben and Bev another brief hug each before they say their goodnights.

  
  


Standing in front of their bathroom mirror, brushing their teeth, they can still hear the occasional outburst from downstairs. 

“Surely Bill should take the couch. He’s the shortest,” Patty says, around her toothbrush. 

Stan spits and rinses before responding. “Yeah, but that would deprive Eddie and Richie of an opportunity to bicker about it. If they just agreed to share a bed outright, they wouldn’t be able to pretend they didn’t want to share a bed.”

“Sounds complicated.” 

He shrugs. “You learn to play along.”

Patty watches as he goes about his nightly routine, filling up glasses of water for them both and carrying them into the bedroom, pulling on old pyjamas, folding his clothes and putting them away. She missed him so much, always does when they’re apart. He was only gone about a week all up, but she thinks about how he felt before he left, thinks about what he left to do, and suddenly it hurts to not be holding him. 

She’s across the room lightning fast, wrapping her arms around him from behind, burying her face in his back. He lets out a soft  _ oof _ , but stands solid and still, tugging her arms tighter around his middle, reaching awkwardly to hug her backwards. She takes deep, steadying breaths. Breathes him in. 

“I’m sorry - ” he starts, but Patty shakes her head. Loosens her grip on him, reaches up to rest her hand over his heart. He’s been her constant for two decades. Her heart. They stand together, quiet, and she feels his heart beat. 

“I love you, Stanley Uris.”

“I love you, Patricia Uris.”

“I love you,” she whispers. “And I almost lost you.” She tries to breathe in deep again, but it gets caught in her throat. She can’t stand the thought. She can’t stand the idea. The what ifs: what if she hadn’t caught the look on his face when he answered Mike’s call, what if they hadn’t called Mike back together, what if Bill hadn’t been able to change his flight so he could swing past Atlanta on his way to Derry, what if she had spent those days terrified and never received the phone call filled with relief, the one where he said, “babylove, it’s over. We’re coming home. All of us, if that’s okay?” What if, what if, what if. 

Stan turns around in her arms. His gaze is steady. It’s home. Love. She gave this man her whole heart when she was eighteen. He wipes his thumbs under her eyes and it’s only then that she realises she’s been crying. 

“Patty, I am so sorry. I am. I love you so much, and I am so sorry I left you behind. I’m sorry this is part of your life now.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t go with you. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. Twice. But I’m absolutely not sorry this is part of my life. It’s part of your life, and I don’t want you to have to deal with this on your own. For better or worse, baby. Those words don’t change their meaning just because your worse includes monsters.” 

He snorts. It’s a little undignified, a little looser than the Stanley she knows, although not completely unheard of. So much about him has shifted since Mike called. He’s still her Stan, but the angle is different. Something integral, something deep in his core has settled, and he’s more himself. More Stan than before. But she hadn’t realised something was being held back until it was set free. 

As always, he’s on the same page as her. He guides her to their bed, maneuvers them until they’re curled together under the covers. He presses a kiss to her forehead, presses their foreheads firmly together. “It’s so strange, Patty. I feel like everything’s changed. I feel like no time has passed at all. I haven’t seen them for decades. Haven’t thought about them at all. And I can’t believe I forgot about them, demon clown magic or not. But I can’t imagine being away from them. It feels like they never left me. Like you must know them to, they’re so much a part of me. I can’t explain it … You’re the most important person in my life, Patty, but they’re in my soul.”

She thinks about that, about how they already feel like her family, feel familiar in a way that does not make sense considering she met them in person for the first time today. But they are a part of Stan, anyone who spent time with them together could see how connected they are, and Stan is a part of her. 

She thinks about the way they seek each other out, the way they slot together. She asks another question. 

“Do you think the show will actually happen?”

Stan’s quiet for a moment, running his fingers absently up and down her arm. She snuggles closer. 

“You know what? I hope it does. I think it could be good for us. For other people. I think it could be really good.” He trails off, but in the contemplative way that means she just has to wait patiently and he’ll keep talking. “I know it’s a major change from accounting, although I’m sure that will come in handy too. But I’d like to try. The others were serious too. I think we’d all like to try. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” she says. “I’d like to try too. I’ve been saying for years now that I want a change. I love teaching, but like Ben said, a show could be educational too. I could help.”

“Baby,” Stan says, leaning in to kiss her, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

She kisses back, humming happily, too tired to do more than move her mouth against his, feel him close to her. She’ll sleep well tonight; exhausted after days of worry and a night of drinking, warm with Stan by her side. 

As she’s drifting off, she hears Stan curse softly under his breath.

“What is it?” she asks. 

“We’re going to have to move to L.A., aren’t we? Richie and Bill are going to be so smug.”

Patty giggles. She shifts around until she has Stan in front of her, his back pulled flush to her chest. She kisses the back of his neck. “Goodnight Stanley.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments are much appreciated, and if you want more of this au they are the best way to get it!


End file.
